The Talk

The Talk: How to do it and How NOT to do it.

On Wednesday, I had part of the sex talk with the 9 year old. I was really worried about this, but it was SIGNIFICANTLY better than I had anticipated.
With our oldest only being 9, I didn't want to overwhelm her so I let her own curiosity lead the conversation.
We talked about female anatomy, periods, fallopian tubes, eggs, ovaries, sperm, embroys, male anatomy, etc.
I could tell the "nitty grity" was over her head so I just mentioned that the sperm that made each of our four kids came from their Dad. Her face went blank like, "what? How does that work?"

And then voila, we had an anatomy lesson that she was seriously interested in and asked about 20 questions.

I even made a diagram of a uterus out of pringles lid and some saran wrap fallopian tubes.

Props to me.

My favorite fact was telling her about how baby girls are born with all the eggs that might make their eventual children.  She was in awe.  I felt like, 'yep, this is how this talk should go'.

I compared it to oranges...she has "immature" or green oranges that aren't ready and won't be for a while. But as a teenager, they will be like a ripe orange and can make a baby at that time (as a fertilized egg, not a spontaneous pregnancy).

To which she made a "ewww" face and shook her head.  We talked about intimacy and what it was made for.  She giggled a little at that and I tried to not go too in depth.

Reality is, most of it was menstrual-cycle centered because that is going to happen to someone she knows very soon, if not already. (Holy crap.)

And the best part of this all: it wasn't bad. 

In fact, I enjoyed it because I saw her grasp of what I was explaining to her and she seemed very interested.

And then today happened. We visited a really cool manatee rescue center. The tour guide explained how to tell the difference between a female and a male.

We had all ages of kids there, 2-17, and she used the scientifically correct language.

The oldest got it.  No questions.

When the 6 year old asked what a vulva was...oh my goodness.  He turned bright red when I explained it was where the baby came out.

He then plugged his ears when I hastily, simply explained the difference between "anus" and "vulva" along with the tour guide.  He was having none of that in public.  Looking back, it could have waited until later.  Fail: Mom.  

I thought I could just ride the wave of great talks like yesterday.

News flash:  the oldest is SO much more different than the 6 year old.  He was mortified, she was intrigued.

I felt horrible.  That was not how I expected to introduce him to female anatomy; via a huge plywood manatee with the anatomically correct placement of the holes.  Poor kid.